The GC has him on an Iowa State kick now, but I don’t see that working at all. We really don’t have anything to complain about, we have a great option for a low price.
@MuggleMom with over 20,000 undergraduate students at UMass. Amherst, I think the extra 600 will be absorbed without much fuss. This probably happens more often than we think, and admissions will most likely admit more conservatively with the following class to help even things out. If my D21 were looking at that school, I think it’s good to know about from an expectations standpoint but the extra 600 this year would not be enough to drop the school from consideration.
@socaldad2002 How many times has your daughter taken the ACT? And did she ever take a sample SAT to determine which one felt better for her? I ask because the tests are different and many kids do prefer one over the other. Another idea, instead of “switching gears” is to think more critically about the ACT questions she’s missing and do more targeted studying (better prep materials, smarter studying, or a new test prep company or tutor). Summer can be a great time to prepare for either test.
I think it’s also important to put the focus on what she’s looking for in a school. We can all get so caught up in what a school is looking for, that we can lose touch with what the student is looking for – and that’s a pretty vital part of the puzzle. Yes, Virginia you can be unhappy at Yale.
@MuggleMom beat me to it, but we all are on our own trajectory, there’s no need to compare. If your daughter does not think a 32 is representative of her testing abilities, then she should take it again!
Re: the UMass Amherst issue - luckily(?) ours only wants small LAC so I am pretty sure we don’t need to worry about over-enrollment (watch, I’ve just cursed O. to getting into the ‘dream’ school, it being affordable, and then winding up in a forced triple!, lol).
However, if we were still trying to winnow the list - that would be an easy way to take a school off of consideration. There are so many schools out there, why take a chance if there is a major misstep (in your opinion).
@fencingmom D20 took the ACT twice, 31 first try, 32 second try. Before she took the ACT she took a modified practice test through her private college counselor which included both SAT/ACT questions. The results were pretty equal for both tests so she decided to do the ACT. FWIW she had a 1430 on the PSAT without studying. Recently both her counselor and ACT tutor suggested maybe taking the SAT in August with 8 weeks prep before. She is going to take an SAT practice test in a week or so and see how she does. If it looks promising she will take the SAT in August. If she doesn’t do great on the practice test, she will study for the ACT as originally planned and take it a third and last time in Sept. She has good Reading and English scores (35, 34 respectively) its just her Science and Math are lower, 31 and 29. If she can bump those up a few points she will have a 33 or 34 composite and/or super score?
Last day of school for my high schoolers tomorrow!
I flipped through D20’s yearbook tonight and I’m feeling all mama bear about a couple of things but I can’t go rant on the school parent FB group because I’m sure the yearbook kids worked hard and overall they did a good job. Actually my top rant isn’t something I think the kids could fix anyway… I think our school has a contract with one local studio for senior portraits and everyone has to go to the same place to get them for the yearbook pose (of course, you don’t have to buy a package there and can go to another photographer if you want … but while you are there for the yearbook pose they do some casuals anyway so most people just purchase those). The girls wear a black drape and the boys wear a black tux (or really, a fake black tux) for the pics and yes, a trans/nonbinary kid can pick the other option but there are still just the 2 little boxes that everyone has to get shoved into. Not sure why they can’t go with a casual / independent option for seniors like they do for the other grades.
Rant #2 along the same lines is that even though our school does an excellent job of calling my kid by her preferred name in every class (and it’s listed in her official paperwork as the preferred name), the yearbook used her legal name. That might be fixable next year if she makes an effort.
Rant #3 is that my kids’ main/ only activity gets really short shrift compared to just about everything else similar to it. Their choir went to NYC and they sang in Carnegie Hall… how cool is that? Don’t you think maybe that should get mentioned in the yearbook? There was a 2 page spread on the dance team’s trip to New York. Guess no one from choir is bffs with the yearbook people or something. Maybe the choir trip was too late in the year (end of March vs the dance team went in February).
Rant #4 is not my rant - I noticed there were no senior quotes this year although I knew they had them other years. Not sure why they cut them out although there’s a new yearbook teacher this year. Anyway, D20 says the seniors were pretty mad about it and had a protest last week.
Okay, I’ll stop ranting at y’all and go to bed :-). I just needed to get that out of my system. Still thinking back to part 1 though and wondering if it’s worth starting a campaign to switch their process. Probably too late for this coming year already.
What do your schools do for senior yearbook pics… have a single studio? Required pose? Required outfit? Or is there more flexibility?
@washugrad one year Girls swim was completely left out of our year book. Like, not there at all. My blood boiled! I had two kids on the team at the time.
D20 wore a men’s suit to prom and generally wears gender neutral clothing and now I am realizing she is not going to be happy with the back drape or “tux” options either.
@washugrad Ugh, reading your post as I’m lying awake thinking about my own gripes about our HS. I hope things will change for your D’s senior year. I have a D19 who is a senior this year, so I can tell you what our school does. They do use a single studio for the yearbook photo, take multiple poses and sell us a ridiculously expensive photo package (optional, but we bought it). There is no required pose, no required outfit. My D took two outfits and several poses, and could choose any one photo for the yearbook.
Honestly the outfit thing seems like a no-brainer. They should be able to fix that so that it’s more inclusive.
@washugrad - our HS lets seniors use whatever photo although they do give guidelines that photo should be in somewhat of a “portrait” orientation. Most kids do outdoorsy shots - some with professional photographers but some just have their friends take photos and they are often just as nice. If you do not choose that option then the HS just uses the photo taken for your student ID. There is also the option to do a traditional drape/tux photo as a keepsake but that does not get into the yearbook.
I have never heard of a ‘drape’, other than for a window. Our HS requires a photo from a specific studio, but the student can wear whatever they want. Don’t like the studio, and apparently they don’t care what your hair looks like. It seems they may not have a mirror at the studio, from what I have seen the last few years with my girls.
Oh, I remember drapes from sorority photo time. Ugg.
@bigmacbeth the ‘drape’ is a fake dress top. It makes the girls look like they are wearing a simple low-cut (but not too low-cut) off-the-shoulder gown that dips a bit in the middle. If you’ve ever seen a sorority composite picture of all of the women where they look like they all had the identical dress on, that’s the drape.
I Googled ‘drape’. I’m all for tradition, but a drape/tux is one that, IMO, should be shelved.
Re Rant #1: Our yearbook also uses the fabulous fake tuxes and black drapes from one studio using the cattle call line 'em up photography session. Considering that D20 has worn a t-shirt for her freshman-junior photos, I’m OK with seeing her in anything else. We did the same thing when I was a senior “back in the day.” Even my mother wore the dreaded drape. My dad went to military school, so they wore uniforms.
Re Rant #2: Right there with you. My daughter goes by a double name. I’ve even tried unsuccessfully to scrunch the entire name in with no space between first and middle.
Re Rant #3: Our choir got a two-page spread and our cheerleaders got a quarter page. Yep, my kid is a cheerleader. (As a former yearbook staffer, I would speculate that the Carnegie Hall concert probably was too late in the year. Yearbooks go to press too early IMO.) And, building on this rant, I don’t know why but our school doesn’t include a team picture with everyone in it. Is it too difficult to put a photo in of the entire choir or band? Even our athletic teams didn’t get team photos published. Well, the golf team did get all of them in but only because there’s only four of them.
Re Rant #4: Yes, we include senior quotes but not from every senior. I have no idea if this is optional and some people choose not to do it or if it is a popularity contest. I know my kid isn’t one to participate in such things. Maybe I’ll ask. Our school has several hundred kids in the class, so I realize that there are space constraints, but I do miss the days of yore when pictures included a quote and a list of activities.
Because of the outcomes of the various rants, our yearbook does a pretty good business of selling senior ads. D20’s will not have one photo of a drape and will include her entire name, a list of school activities, and a quote. Now to find that Chinese Club t-shirt …
@VickiSoCal There’s no way our swim team would get left out. The swim team and the cheerleaders are the only athletic teams at our school that have winning seasons. The swimmers won state and the cheerleaders won a national title.
Our school has “senior” t-shirts made. I think that would be a fun, gender-neutral option, and everyone would still have a continuous look.
What I hate about the yearbooks these days (at least at DS’s school) is they do not identify the students in any way in all the activities and candid shots. Back in my day , the yearbooks had an index at the end with every students name and a list of all the page numbers they appeared on, plus the names were listed on as many photos as was reasonable (huge group shots maybe not). Twenty years from now DS is not going to be able to remember who half those people are.
I’m LOLing at the yearbook rants, because the I’ve also noticed how different yearbooks are now: more emphasis on catchy graphic design, candid photos, snappy copy; less on carefully chronicling the year’s events. This year our HS’s was more traditional, in that they returned to doing group photos for the sports teams; and there’s an index of student names. The non-sports extracurricular coverage was really uneven, though, with one MAJOR, very successful club left out entirely (?!), and then weird things like the theater page didn’t highlight the seniors, some of whom are going on to top BFA programs.
Last year for some reason my MS daughter was the “star” of the yearbook, with so many photos of her it was like “A Day in the Life of ___.” Not sure how that happened; normally, my kids are the ones left out entirely.
Out yearbook left out all clubs and honor societies. Only sports got separate pages. No NHS, no DECA. And for 13 straight years at 2 different schools, my son’s yearbook picture listed him by his given, not preferred, name.
Our school has started using gender-neutral language for clothing guidelines, eg, for what to wear for 8th grade promotion. For senior yearbook photos, the guideline was “black and white.” Looks like the photography studio provided a black sport coat, or black drape, for those who wanted it, or students wore their own black dress/blouse/sport coat. A few girls in the black blazer, no boys in the drape.
Is it just me, or does it look like some of the drapes are photoshopped in after the fact?